Getting Ready for Fiscal Year End

ConnectCarolina User Group

April 17, 2015

Anita CollinsConnectCarolina Change

Management Lead

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What are the user group meetings?

• “Deep dives” into hot topics• A chance to ask questions• Open to anyone who uses ConnectCarolina• Please encourage your coworkers to come

Remember: Getting Help

• The Help Desk is the best way to ensure your question or issue doesn’t get lost

• Include specific examples and screenshots if possible• Two key ways:

– 919-962-HELP– help.unc.edu

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Year-End Page on ConnectCarolina

ccinfo.unc.edu > Finance > 2015 Fiscal Year End

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Year end is approaching

• This is the first fiscal year-end close in ConnectCarolina.

• Just like in past years, Dennis Press, our University Controller, will communicate cut-off dates for year-end close (in early May).

• But there are some things you can be doing now to start getting ready.

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Steps to Year End

Clean up your “stuck” transactions1

Get familiar with recent changes that help you prepare for year end

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Make any changes needed to departments (if that’s your role)

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3 Understand your balances (if that’s your role)

4 Plan for next year’s budgets (if that’s your role)

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More to come …6

Anita CollinsConnectCarolina Change

Management Lead

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Clean up “stuck” transactions1

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Clean up stuck transactions

Getting ready for month end close helps you get ready for year end…

Each month after go live, you’ve been managing your transactions, particularly campus journals

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Reminder: What happens to unposted transactions at month end

For this unposted transaction… This happens at end of month …Budget journal or transfer Budget journals and transfers for State and F&A

funds are deleted, while others are unchanged.Campus journal Accounting Services deletes or posts them.

Any type of voucher Accounting Services rolls them forward to the next month (by changing the accounting date to the new month).

Requisitions and purchase orders

Requisitions and POs are posted in the month they are processed in (which can be a future month).

Deposits and billing entries

Deposits are posted in current month.

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Can’t leave transactions open at year end

For year-end close, we can’t leave transactions open. That means:

• Vouchers can’t roll forward to a new fiscal year. All vouchers must be posted by the end of the year or they will be deleted.

• All requisitions must be closed or fully cancelled. If they are not, they are subject to being cancelled by central office.

• Purchase orders with an open balance can roll to the next year if all related documents are in the correct status.

• Campus journals will continue to be deleted if they are not processed (department approvals complete).

• For budget journals and transfers, Accounting Services and the Budget Office are working on the year end process.

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Three areas where transactions can get stuck

Edit errors: checks the system does on the transaction, such as making sure:

– the chartfield combination is valid (combo edits)

– dates are valid– the PO, voucher, and receipt match

Budget errors

Unposted for any reason (for example, still in approvals)

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We have lots of queries to help you identify stuck

transactions, so that you can clean them up

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Not just for year end—try to get in the habit of using them

every month

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So your goal for year end …

All transactions need to have departmental approval completed.

So for each type of transaction that is open, figure out why the transaction is stuck, and then either:

• Delete it

or

• Resolve the issue and then get it through departmental approval before the date specified by Accounting Services.

This class will help …

Learn how:

Preparing for Year-End Close: Reviewing Open Transactions class

• Use queries to identify “stuck” transactions• Open to all

– Sign up on the Training Schedule on ccinfo.unc.edu– Offered lots of times

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This checklist will help too …

ccinfo.unc.edu > Training > Resources > Checklist to Clean up Requisitions and Vouchers for ME and YE Close

Martha PendergrassDirector of

Procurement Services

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Get familiar with recent changes that help you prepare for year end

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Recent changes: Receive by PO

• Like we mentioned earlier: All requisitions must be closed or fully cancelled. If they are not, they are subject to being cancelled by central office.

• Purchase orders with an open balance can roll to the next year if all related documents are in the correct status (they’ve been dispatched, they’re not on hold, and so on).

• You can now receive by PO ID—you won’t have to contact buyers to do this for you.

• This lets you:– receive against POs converted from FRS– receive against POs that don’t allow you to receive by requisition or

for those when you don’t know the requisition number

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Procurement

ccinfo.unc.edu > Training > Resources > Creating a Receipt by Purchase Order

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Deleting vouchers for year end

• Like we mentioned, vouchers can’t roll forward to a new fiscal year. All vouchers must be posted by the end of the year or they will be deleted.

• To help with cleaning up vouchers, you can now delete vouchers you have created—you no longer have to contact Disbursement Services.

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Deleting a Campus Voucher

ccinfo.unc.edu > Training > Resources > Deleting a Campus Voucher

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Susan McDonoughChange Management

Consultant

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Understand your balances3

Understand Your Balances

• To meet needs for year-end reporting, we have a new “enhanced reporting” role

– Gives expanded access to tools and information, so a smaller set of users have access

– Starts with access to certain queries to see balances, will add reports in other formats as well (such as nVision)

• Worked with MOU Leads to identify users—responses received March 30

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Understand Your Balances

• Selected users need to re-certify Terms of Use

– Everyone who uses ConnectCarolina is asked to review the updated Terms of Use, but you don’t need to click the button to certify

– Those who have access to the new reports need to click the button.

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Understand Your Balances

Learn how:Reporting in an Accrual Based Accounting System class

• Participants use their own data to practice and view the financial position of their own departments.

• Only open to those designated by their MOU leads to have access to these financial reports.

• Have sent invitations to those who have been named to have this access.

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Understand Your Balances

• By taking this class, you’ll understand what the important balances are in ConnectCarolina. In FRS, we just had one balance. In ConnectCarolina, we have several meaningful balances.

• You will understand why there might be differences across these balances, and whether those differences are something you need to worry about.

• You will understand what balances to look at based on the fund type.

• You will be able to answer the question, “how much money is in this fund.”

Henry PriceBudget Officer

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Plan for next year’s budgets4

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Plan for Next Year’s Budgets

• The budget definitions (that is, how the system manages budget for different types of funds such as F&A funds or Trust funds) will change for fiscal year 2016.

• Read more about the changes – two memos were sent in the last few weeks and you can find them here

Summary of the changes:

• Foundations will be able to budget on Program, Cost Code 1, Cost Code 2, and Cost Code 3.

• F&A: we’ll budget by account on F&A funds. You can budget for personnel, account 510000, or non-personnel, account 500100.

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Plan for Next Year’s Budgets

TRUST– Sources in ranges 17900-17999 and 46000-48999 are Trust 1.

– Most sources are in the Trust 2 range. Trust 2 encompasses everything that’s not Trust 1, Athletics, Student Affairs, and UNC Faculty Physicians.

• In FY16, we’ll budget by account on Trust 1 and Trust 2 expenses.

– You can budget for personnel, account 510000, or non-personnel, account 500100.

– Instead of budgeting revenue account by revenue account, we’ll budget all Trust 1 and Trust 2 revenues with a single account, 400100.

– Athletics, Student Affairs, and UNC Faculty Physicians budgeting will not change.

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Plan for Next Year’s Budgets

TRUST (cont.)

• Cost Code 3 is not available as an optional chartfield on Trust 2. You will budget by Fund-Source-Account-Dept.

• Program continues to be an optional chartfield for budgeting on Trust 2.

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Plan for Next Year’s Budgets

Associated Revenue• Starting July 1, Associated Revenue will no longer be available to

increase spending authority on trust funds.

• Instead, a nightly process will run to increase available balances. The process will look at recognized revenue, and create an expense budget journal. (Similar to the automatic budget create process we had in FRS.)

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Plan for Next Year’s Budgets

• Budget controls to be lifted May 1 for State funds

• Communication went out last week

May 1

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How PO roll forward affects budgets

• Encumbrances from open Purchase Orders roll forward to the new fiscal year before the final State expenditures are determined for FY2015 – Note: Remember a PO must have all documents in the correct status

in order to be eligible to roll.

• If a department doesn’t completely close out a PO before the deadline, then they need to plan to spend those funds another way, and not assume that the budget will be available in the next fiscal year.

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How PO roll forward affects budgets

Example:1. Suppose your department’s total State budget for 2015 is

$1,000,000.2. You have an open PO of $20,000 that is eligible to roll.3. The $20,000 encumbrance rolls to 2016, and it comes out of

FY 2016’s budget.

• Your department either finds a different way to spend the $20,000 left from 2015 by 6/30/15, or the final State expenditure is $980,000.

• If the final State expenditure is $980,000, there is no guarantee that the department will be allowed to carry forward the $20,000 of budget that was unspent.

Anita CollinsConnectCarolina Change

Management Lead

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Make any changes needed to departments

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Make Any Changes Needed to Departments

• As usual, fiscal year end is the time we make any changes that need to be made to departments.

• If changes are needed, your MOU lead is working with the Provost’s Office to get the changes made.

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Key Takeaways

• Try to get in the habit of cleaning up your “stuck” transactions every few days.

• Sign up for the “Preparing for Year-End Close: Reviewing Open Transactions” class

• If you have enhanced reporting access, sign up for the “Reporting in an Accrual Based Accounting System” class

• Make sure you understand the changes to budgets that take effect July 1

?Questions?

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See you at the next Finance user group meeting 11:00 on

May 15, Genome Sciences G100